The Posters Behind the Artists
Artists Heinz Schulz-Neudamm Reynold Brown Anselmo Ballester Saul Bass Albert Kallis Bob Peak Bill Gold Drew Struzan Bill Morrison John Alvin James Verdesoto Grzegorz Domaradzki Olly Moss Laurent Durieux Dawn Baillie
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Introduction Films have become a key part of today’s society. Hollywood continues to thrive as movie-goers still go to the cinemas around the world. Even despite online means of free entertainment, people still continue to go to the movies as a past time. It’s one of the few things that hasn’t changed throughout the ages. Young couples to old still love going to see upcoming movies and their favorite actors on the big screen. And as any one of these movie-goers would tell you, one of the many, and essential, parts of any theatre is the abundance of movie posters. These posters range from animated children’s movies to dark and gritty adult features. They’ve become such a key part of the movie process that there are now entire corporations dedicated to their creation. However, in previous cinematic eras, these posters were created by individual artists. Unlike today’s movie posters, these works of art underwent a massive amount of attention to detail, strain, passion, and dedication. For many of these artists, the process of creating a movie poster was just as important as any other art form. In early cinema years, these posters contained simple yet effective means of gathering the attention of upcoming audiences. As times progressed and the evolution of cinema continued, these posters changed drastically over time. A great time in film history was the abundance of corny, far-fetched extremes of plots and concepts. The human mind, curious as it is, was in desperate need of seeing such fantasies on screen. Over time, though, these posters became more and more serious - much like the world around the audiences. Such is the way of nearly every aspect of the cinema experience. These posters not only reflect the movie, or the time period of that movie, but the feelings of the viewers of that time. During war times, movies and their posters would and still do take darker turns, and those that fail to do so usually fall from recognition. By examining these posters, one can gather how people in the past truly felt in their day-to-day lives. Over time, though, movie posters became less of an individual artist’s craft and creativity and began being mass produced by large corporations. Of course, this makes sense from a business standpoint. In order to keep up with the demand for such posters as movies come out quicker and quicker with every progressing year, so do the posters that advertise them. It is debatable, though, whether or not these posters contain the same sense of pride and artistic value as posters in past ages. Whether or not one may agree or disagree, everyone may agree that posters still serve a key part in cinemas. Theaters would not be theaters without numerous posters enticing and inspiring children, young and old, from all different eras of cinema history. As any art, movie posters will continue to change over time. It is impossible to determine how the future of the world will influence the movies we all go to watch in cinemas around the world, but it can be determined, without a doubt, we will all continue to love and embrace the posters and the art behind them.
Exhibition Curated, Written, and Designed by Blake Barnes Delta State University, Cleveland, MS October 29th, 2017
The Posters Behind the Artists
Heinz Schulz-Neudamm
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Heinz Schulz-Neudamm was a German graphic designer and illustrator. He worked until the forties in Berlin designing advertisments for various films such as Lost Diary (1929) and Inherited or shoots (1929). He mostly worked for German missions American rental companies, including the German Fox (later the 20th Century Fox), the German Universal Film AG, the Parufamet and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Schulz-Neudamm was responsible for the design of Parufamet-press kits and Paramount journal. In addition, he also designed illustrations, including portrait sketches for the magazine Filmillustrierte. Since the early 1950s he lived in Schulz-Neudamm, Wiesbaden, where he continued work for the film industry, including the United Artists.
This poster for Metropolis, 1927, is held as one of the greatest movie posters in cinematic history. There are four known surviving copies of this version of the poster for Metropolis, the sci-fi dystopian film which was, at the time, one of the most expensive movies ever made. It is considered groundbreaking for its use of special effects. Leonardo DiCaprio reportedly owns a copy, while the other copies belong to the Museum of Modern Art and the Austrian National Library museum.
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The Mark of Zorror, 1940, directed by Rouben Mamoulian.
Anna Karenina, 1935, directed by Clarence Brown.
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1941, directed by Victor Fleming.
The Adventures of Robin Hood, 1938, directed by Michael Curtiz.
Reynold Brown
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Reynold Brown was born in 1917 Los Angeles. He drew continuously as a child. He particularly liked telling stories by drawing, comic book style, for the neighborhood children while sitting on a sidewalk curb or a porch stairway. About 1936 or ‘37, he was able to get a job inking and then drawing the syndicated comic strip by Hal Forrest, “Tailspin Tommy.” This strip told the story of a barnstorming pilot, Tailspin Tommy. Brown worked on the strip until 1942. During high school Brown came to admire the great illustrators of the age, such as J.C. Leyendecker, Dean Cornwell, N.C. Wyeth and especially Norman Rockwell. Rockwell’s sister taught at Brown’s high school. Through Bonar, Brown was able to meet Norman Rockwell. Rockwell advised Brown that if he wanted to learn illustration he would have to leave the comic strip and start finding jobs as an illustrator. Brown left, to the dismay of Forrest. In 1951, while doing a show for Art Center, Brown met Misha Kallis, an Art Director for Universal Pictures. Brown soon completed his first movie poster for Universal, The World in His Arms, featuring Gregory Peck and Ann Blyth. That began a series of over 250 campaigns for Universal, MGM, Disney and American International Pictures (AIP). Brown’s work was used to promote classics like Ben Hur and Spartacus, westerns wuch as The Alamo and Taza, Son of Cochise and drama, horror, monster and science fiction films. His science fiction works for such pieces as The Time Machine and This Island Earth, as well as his monsters like The Creature from the Black Lagoon have already become popular among collectors. In the early seventies Brown decided to take part in the developing market for fine art paintings on a western theme. Brown had always liked painting the west as a subject in his illustrations. He set aside illustration work, including poster art and concentrated on western paintings for the fine arts market. Brown’s skills well developed through his many years of illustrating, made his work popular and he sold about 250 oil paintings. These covered not only the west; they included portraits, harbor scenes and landscapes. He also sold work in charcoal, pencil, pastel and watercolor. Brown suffered a severe stroke in 1976. His left side was completely paralyzed. With the help of Mary Louise, he was able to retrain himself. Although unable to do the detailed and highly representational work of his pre-stroke years, he was none-the-less able to do produce some powerful drawings and beautiful landscape paintings of Nebraska, where he settled in 1983 and remained until his death in 1991.
His wife, Mary Louise, always at his side, continues to paint in pastel. She is now 79.
Films during this era of cinema were still fresh and new, which led to a diluge of extreme, far-fetched scenarios for plots. The posters for these movies accurately represent this concept. Attack of the 50ft Woman, 1958, directed by Nathan H. Juran, depicts a giant woman terrorizing a city. The proportions of the woman in the poster are drastically off, especially for her to be only fifty feet; however, this correlates well with the campy nature of the film itself.
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Konga, 1961, directed by John Lemont, has a movie poster that goes along with the era’s campy and curious nature - this film depicting one of the earlier versions of King Kong. There is an emphasis on color and type, capturing the viewer’s attention just as well as the actual depiction of the massive gorialla itself.
The Time Machine, 1960, directed by George Pal, further exemplifies the nature of the era. Based off the book by H.G. Wells, this poster captures the wonderous concept of time travel and what may lie ahead in the future. Again, there is a focus on type and vibrant color.
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The poster for Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1954, directed by Jack Arnold, depicts an underwater monster, cool colors, and bold, captivating type.
The poster for World Without End, 1956, directed by Edward Bernds, is a highly stylized piece. The poster, much like the other posters of the time, features vivid colors and bold type, along with a captivating visual that gives the viewer a sense of science fiction.
Anselmo Ballester
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Ballester (1897-1974), pioneer and founder of the Pittori del cinema [Cinema Artists], represents the ideal figure of the versatile artist; he gave rise to what would later be recognised as the art of film publicity creating over three thousand posters. An undisputed portrait artist blessed with extraordinary creativity and calligraphy skills, he was appreciated by the public and in great demand by the most important production companies and would continue painting without interruption for over fifty years, from 1914 until the early Sixties. He was a reference point during a period in Italian cinema, from the Thirties to the Fifties, also collaborating with foreign producers and illustrating films by directors of the level of Lang, Preminger, Cukor, Ophuls and Hitchcock. From the simple characteristics of his early compositions, Ballester developed and perfected the elaborate and refined pictorial technique which would define the later years of his activity.
This poster of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1951, shows Ballester’s depiction of the legendary story. It features the complementary colors of red and green with a bold, vibrant type for the title.
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This poster of William Dieterle’s Salome, 1953, featuers a focal point on one of the characters in the film, with cool colors flowing about her. The title, although bold, is subdued by its neutral color. This poster also adds to its hierachy the importance of the actors.
This poster of The Shanghai Drama, 1938, directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, features an extreme vibrance in color and stylization that is easily capable of captivating a viewer’s attention. It’s title is bold and bright, a central focal point in its hierachy, along with a few actors in the film.
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This alternate poster for The Mark of Zorror features a unique style. The red “Z� captures the attention of the viewer, along with the contrasting colors between the two aliases. The title and the actors are, again, central focus points of the poster.
On the Waterfront, 1954, directed by Elia Kazan.
Saul Bass
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Saul Bass was a great 20th-century American graphic designer, who created the corporate image and memorably stunning logos for numerous American companies. Saul Bass was, first and foremost a pioneering 1950s Hollywood designer, the founder of conceptual cover design, who created the motion picture title sequences and posters for a great many films. Saul Bass developed a simplified, symbolic design language that visually communicated all the essential elements of a film. Bass designed emblematic posters that made a stunning visual impact, thus revolutionizing animated film graphics and the visuals of film advertizing. Born in the Bronx, Saul Bass was given a scholarship to the Art Students League in 1936. From 1944 until 1946 Saul Bass studied at Brooklyn College. He worked in New York as a freelance commercial artist for advertizing agencies and companies, including Warner Bros. In 1946 Saul Bass went to Los Angeles, where he continued to work as a commercial artist. By 1952 he had a practice of his own, which was registered from 1955 as Saul Bass & Associates. In 1954 he received his first commission from the director Otto Preminger to design the title sequence for his film “Carmen Jones”. This commission was followed in 1955 by others from Robert Aldrich and the Billy Wilder Film “The Seven Year Itch”. That same year Saul Bass designed the title sequence for Preminger’s “The Man with the Golden Arm” and it caused a sensation. Saul Bass became the leading title designer in Hollywood; the directors Bass worked in this capacity include Alfred Hitchcock (“Vertigo”, “North by Northwest”, “Psycho”), from 1960 Stanley Kubrick (“Spartacus”, “The Shining”), from 1990 for Martin Scorsese (“Good Fellas”, “Cape Fear”, “The Age of Innocence”, “Casino”); and, in 1993 Steven Spielberg: the title sequence for “Schindler’s List”. Between 1991 and 1996 Saul Bass also designed the posters for the Oscar Awards ceremony. In addition to his work for Hollywood, Saul Bass has created the corporate image of numerous companies, including United Airlines, AT&T, Minolta, Esso, BP, and Continental Airlines, for which he also designed the company logos.
The movie Vertigo, 1958, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, features one of Saul Bass’s greatest works of cinematic posters. The design is based on a simplified two-colour process that uses hand-cut lettering against a bright orange background. The tiny portraits of James Stewart and Kim Novak are the only photo-mechanical elements in the design. The technical specification for the poster reads as a screenprint. The small photographic elements, hand-cut type and solid bright orange are all indicators of this process. Accordingly, the film is positioned as an edgy and psychologically complex story,
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The Shining, 1980, directed by Stanley Kubrick, features a simple yet highly recognizable and unique poster by Bass. Again, a single background color sets off the film title and the resonating face, which is rendered in a photographic/stippling effect. Bass boosts the “The” twice as large as “Shining,” but it still manages to come together. It’s reported that Bass worked up 300 designs before Kubrick settled on this version.
Anatomy of a Murder, 1959, directed by Otto Preminger, featires arguably one of Bass’s greater works. Although simple, one can gather information about the story even without the title just by the craftiness of the figure itself. This poster carries along with Bass’s simple, single colored backgrounds. The names of the actors are held to nearly the same hierarchy as the title.
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This is the one that broke all kinds of ground. First off, Bass trashed the idea of showing the flick’s star. Instead of headshots or scenes, he represented the film iconically. The crooked arm, the surrounding, ruggedly rendered san-serif type and geometric blocks of solid color—the one-sheet created as much of a splash as his design for the movie’s title sequence.
Schindler’s List, 1993, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Albert Kallis
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Albert Kallis was a professional artist who designed many film posters for American International Pictures (AIP) releases in the 1950s. Kallis’ striking designs elevated the selling of exploitation movies to a new art form in itself. Indeed, AIP’s Sam Arkoff and James H. Nicholson would often have a poster designed first to presell a movie to theatre owners before it even went into production. Kallis is also one of the co-founders of IHOP.
Continuing the traditions of the 50s, The Brain Eaters, 1958, directed by Bruno VeSota, this poster depicts the earlier years of intrigue that captivated viewers to stories never before seen on screen. The exterior white borders, which carry the names of the crew and cast, becomes a major feature in many movie posters of the time.
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Terror from the Year 5,000, 1958, directed by Robert J. Gurney Jr.. This poster carries the same format of the white border surrounding the central image. The title is bold and bright, just as captivating as the futuristic, science-fiction style of the poster art.
This poster for Invasion of the Saucer-Men, 1957, directed by Edward L. Cahn, features signature bold, bright type for the title and large art work of intrigue and story. This poster continues to prove the mindset of the time’s audience of wonder of the unknown.
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Night of the Blood Beast, 1958, directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
The Amazing Colossal Man, 1957, directed by Bert I. Gordon.
Bob Peak
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Considered “the father of the contemporary movie poster,� Bob Peak totally transformed the approach to movie advertising from basic collages of film stills or head shots to flamboyant artistic illustrations. After his first poster for West Side Story in 1960, he went on to create more than 100 posters for such films as Camelot, My Fair Lady, Superman, Apocalypse Now, Excalibur and Star Trek III, just to name a few. Although a large amount of his work was for the film industry, Peak was not short on editorial assignments with 45 covers of Time Magazine featuring his illustrations -most notably the portrait of Mother Teresa. Peak’s success was a result of being flexible. It kept him moving and won him eclectic assignments: in 1964 he hunted Ibex with the Shah of Iran for Sports Illustrated; he received the largest commission for an individual artist from the U.S. Postal Service, to design over 30 stamps and 31 watercolor paintings depicting various historical Olympic moments for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Peak was one of the most prolific artists in his profession. Although he took pride in being a commercial illustrator he also found room for personal expression as a gallery fine art painter. His work has been featured in One Man Shows too numerous to mention and is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institute, the American Museum of Sports, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, among others.
My Fair Lady, 1964, directed by George Cukor. Though the film was originally developed as a Rex Harrison vehicle, Bob made a bold decision to develop his ideas with Audrey Hepburn as the focal point of the pieces. This final piece of art shows Audrey Hepburn holding an open umbrella with Rex Harrison positioned over her left shoulder. This captures the charm, romance and essence of the film in one memorable painting. This was used as the promotional movie poster.
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Superman, 1978, directed by Richard Donner. Peak retains the white border that is prominent in many of the movie posters of the era. The insignia in the center of the poster serves sa the main focal point.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 1979, directed by Robert Wise.
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Apocalypse Now, 1979, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Silverado, 1985, directed by Lawrence Kasdan.
Bill Gold
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If you’ve gone to the movies within the past seven decades, chances are Bill Gold had something to do with getting you there. A designer who created the posters for some of the best-known films in history, Mr. Gold struck that tricky balance between art and commerce, creating works that won design-world plaudits and enticed audiences to buy tickets. During his career Mr. Gold, 89, created over 2,000 posters, from “Casablanca” in 1942 to “Mystic River” in 2003. Along the way he and his firm designed the posters for “Cool Hand Luke,” “The Exorcist,” “My Fair Lady,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Alien.” A selection of that work has been collected in a sizable new book called “Bill Gold Posterworks.” “I know what movie posters should look like, instinctively,” said Mr. Gold, who lives in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. “I looked at everything that MGM and Paramount and all the companies did, and I never liked anything that I saw. I always found fault with the fact that they showed three heads of the actors, and that’s about all the concept they would use. And when I started to work, I thought: I don’t want to just do a concept with three heads in it. I want a story.” Mr. Gold worked on poster campaigns for films by Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Federico Fellini, but his most significant relationship was with Clint Eastwood. The two began working together in 1971 when Mr. Gold created the poster for “Dirty Harry” and continued until Mr. Gold retired in 2004.
Mr. Gold’s first assignment in 1942 after being hired by the Warner Brothers art department in New York was “Casablanca.” I thought all the characters in this film were very important, so I wanted them in the poster,” he said. “I put them in the background and put Ingrid Bergman in front of them on the left side of Bogart, but I wanted her to be looking on behind him. I didn’t want to tip off that there was a love affair.” The studio had but one request: Wanting to sell Bogart as a star, it asked if the poster could be more exciting. “So I went back and put a gun in his hand,” he said. It worked.
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For “A Clockwork Orange,” Stanley Kubrick’s dystopian nightmare, Mr. Gold spent six months working on black-and-white poster designs before coming to this poster. The illustration, drawn by Ivan Punchatz, fashions the lead character, Alex DeLarge, as a sacrificial figure to science. “It was more of a symbolic design concept,” Mr. Gold said. The poster was never used. “We submitted it to Kubrick, and he didn’t like it. He’s very tough, very exacting. He knows exactly what he wants. He’s brilliant and he’s got phenomenal taste. But this didn’t appeal to him. I guess it was too scientific looking. He wanted more of a flesh-and-blood violence look.”
The poster used in the domestic campaign for “Deliverance”showed hands coming out of the river holding a rifle. But executives in charge of the international campaign wanted something a little more dynamic to represent a movie about a weekend canoe trip from hell. “So I thought, wouldn’t it be great if it had a three-dimensional quality, and it looked like it was coming out of the eye of one of the Southern characters,” Mr. Gold said of the Dalíesque look. The line “What did happen on the Cahulawassee River?” added a mysterious touch.
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For the final poster Mr. Gold worked on before retiring he wanted to keep things simple. “ ‘Less is more’ is what Clint would always say,” he recalled. “I went to Boston and stayed there for about a month and shot a lot of pictures.” But rather than using stills for “Mystic River,” Clint Eastwood’s adaptation of a Dennis Lehane novel, he ultimately decided to go with a silhouette of the three main characters reflected in the water, their lives turned upside down by tragic events. The final image was a composite of a photograph and illustration along with the tag line from the film’s dialogue: “We bury our sins here. We wash them clean.”
Kallis explains: “I picked the still out of the stills pack—of the priest Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) arriving at the house in Georgetown for the exorcism with a briefcase in his hand—because it struck a chord with me. When you looked at this still, you knew somehow that whatever is about to happen inside that house is not going to be good! I adapted it with Dick Knipe for the final poster, taking a lot of the detail out of it and turning it into a design, and after that no-one wanted to see anything else. I’d been specifically told by William Friedkin and Warner Bros. that we mustn’t use an image of the girl possessed, or show anything that had any hint of religious connotation to it. They were concerned about that. Friedkin was very involved, he was there all the time. For the other ideas, we shot some specially posed photographs which are not from the movie: the open door and something going on inside—you just see the hand; the girl on the bed; the girl smiling. But Friedkin and Warners rejected all of them, told me to chuck them out. They certainly picked the right image, which was used all over the world. And the movie became the biggest hit in Warners’ history.'
Drew Struzan
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You may not recognize his name, but if you’ve seen a movie poster in the last 40 years you almost certainly know Drew Struzan’s work. The 67-year-old artist didn’t just create some of the most iconic one-sheets in cinema history. He’s also very likely the guy responsible for the image in your head when you think of a beloved movie or actor from the ’80s and ’90s (particularly if the latter is Harrison Ford). This is true for a ridiculous number of films, from Star Wars and Blade Runner, to Big Trouble in Little China, the Back to the Future trilogy, and The Thing. As Struzan acolytes like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Frank Darabont, and Guillermo del Toro have pointed out, he has an uncanny ability to capture both the spirit and mood of a film in one static image. Indeed, it’s not uncommon for his posters to surpass the source material. “I had to almost live up to the art that we were later going to ask Drew to create for the poster,” admits Spielberg in the 2013 Struzan documentary, Drew: The Man Behind the Poster. Struzan officially retired from poster work in 2008, but that retirement has been spotty at best. Over the past six years, he’s continued to produce occasional work for television and movies like The Walking Dead and Cowboys & Aliens. Most recently, he created a pro-bono poster for director Dana Nachman’s Batkid Begins.
Star Wars: A New Hope, 1977, directed by George Lucas. Struzan’s poster work here solidified him as one of the greatest science fiction cinematic artists. It also marks him into the Star Wars legend for which he continuously returns to create new and wonderous posters for each movie.
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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 1984, directed by Steven Spielberg. This poster introduces a more earthy tone, a stark contrast from Struzan’s sci-fi poster art. Once again, though, he keeps the faces of the characters in the poster and continues the tradition of the white border. The type is stylized and bold, with a clear hierarchy and precise focal points.
Back to the Future, 1985, directed by Robert Zemeckis. This poster contains a title type very similar to the revious poster, just as bold and captivating. It also brings into play a key element from the actual story of the film and gives it a starring role in the poster. The white border returns, except this time the names of the cast and crew are moved into the actual artwork. Struzan brings back his sci-fi color palette for this poster.
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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 2001, directed by Chris Columbus. Struzan gives away the white border and introduces a black one. He continues the trend of placing majority of the central cast in the poster and adding some intriguing moments from the story into the art. The title type is yet again bold and bright.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, 2015, directed by J.J. Abrams. Struzan was brought in for an alternate movie poster for this film, bringing back the classic feel of his original poster art. Similar to his later posters, there is no white border, and in this one there are no cast and crew names. Instead, he leaves the focus on the title, release date, and classic artwork.
Bill Morrison
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Though he’s most famous for his comic book work featuring The Simpsons, Bill Morrison began his career as an illustrator working mostly in the field of motion picture advertising. He’s painted dozens of memorable movie posters, many for Walt Disney Pictures animated films, including Bambi, Cinderella, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, The Prince and the Pauper, Rollercoaster Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, and many more.
Bambi, 1942, directed by James Algar. This poster captures the innocent, child-like storytelling of Walt Disney. Morrison also continues the trend of the white border. The title is bold and contrasting, making it exceedingly apparent and a major focal point. Of course, in addition, the signature of Walt Disney is added.
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Cinderella, 1950, directed by Clyde Geronimi. This poster contains the era’s classic white border and Walt Disney’s signature. The title is highly noticeable due to its size in comparison to every other subject in the poster.
Lady and the Tramp, 1955, directed by Clyde Geronimi.
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Voyage of the Rock Aliens, 1988, directed by James Fargo. This poster contrasts form Morrison’s other work. It still continues the white border trend, but there is a significant darker tone in contrasat to his Disney movies. The artwork takes the central focal point with the bold, bright title coming in second. This poster has a tagline majority of Morrison’s other work does not include.
The Little Mermaid, 1989, directed by John Musker.
John Alvin
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John Alvin was one of the most celebrated contemporary American cinematic artists. He illustrated a multitude of film posters for American cinema. He is credited for designing posters and key art for over 135 films. Alvin’s trademark style came to known as Alvinesque by his associates and friends. His illustrations include E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Lion King, Rainman and Star Wars. In the span of thirty years of his professional career, Alvin produced artwork for over 135 films. He worked with some of the prestigious film studios in Hollywood, such as Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Entertainment and New Line Cinema. Some of his remarkable projects included Jurassic Park, Predator, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Beauty and the Beast and Cocoon. Moreover, on the 30th anniversary of Star Wars he created celebratory posters and other artworks for the franchise. It was followed by Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy film art campaign. In fact, he invested his creative energy into some of the most extraordinary film projects of the decade, Walt Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean films and the Warner Bros’ Harry Potter film series. Some of Alvin’s colleagues believe that his creative force was the sole reason behind the success of film projects like The Lion King and Hunchback. The National Collection of Fine Arts selected his poster of The Phantom of the Paradise to be part of their collection. A collection of posters that toured Europe as part of the US Bicentennial, entitled Images of an Era (1945-1975), included some of his artwork as well. A portfolio of his work is published posthumously, titled The Art of John Alvin (2014). John Alvin died of a myocardial infarction in 2008.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982, directed by Steven Spielberg. The poster for this movie has left a lasting impression on cinematic movie posters. The alien and human hands touching with the vastness of space in the background is one of the most iconic visuals in all of film history. The title is bold and literally illuminating.
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The Color Purple, 1985, directed by Steven Spielberg. Alvin is able to capture a simple lifestyle by this simple image of a woman sitting in a rocking chair. It rings of southern lifestyle without any context behind it. Naturally, there is a purple hue to the poster.
The Lost Boys, 1987, directed by Joel Schumacher. This poster is highly recognizable and unique with the lineup of characters in black and white in contrast to the bloody colored background. The tagline stands out in comparison to the red, and the title stands out as a classic font in the movie’s context.
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Batman Returns, 1992, directed by Tim Burton. This poster has a vague hierarchy, but due to it being a film about a popular idol, Batman, the main focal point is on him. The actors are all famous, so their names are added to the top of the poster, and the title makes sure be bold and contrasting to the dark background.
The Lion King, 1994, directed by Rob Minkoff. The color of this poster captures a viewer’s attention with ease. The lion’s face in the sky sparks a sense of intrigue, and the bold title retains that attention. The Walt Disney signature is, of course, added to further the film’s support.
James Verdesoto
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Before graduating from the Parsons School of Design in New York City James Verdesoto won a national contest to design the theatrical movie poster for the 1981 horror film The Burning. James then started the inhouse creative services department at Miramax Films, and as Creative Director went on to create campaigns for hits such as Pulp Fiction, The Crying Game, The Piano and over 200 other films. In 1992, he co-founded Indika Entertainment Advertising with partner Vivek Mathur and has gone on to create campaigns for films including The English Patient, Oceans 11, Training Day, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Before Night Falls, The Last Samurai, Knotting Hill , Man on the Moon, Girl Interrupted, Valentino The Last Emperor, The Road, Cairo Time and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. To date, he has created over 400 movie posters for clients including Sony, Warner Bros., Universal, Fox, The Weinstein Company, Miramax Films, New Line, HBO, and many others. He recently had a solo retrospective exhibit of 100 posters at the Itchimbia Museum in Quito, Ecuador. His work has received numerous awards, including Key Art Awardfor Best Drama Poster and Teaser Poster, and his poster for Ocean’s 11 was hailed by Entertainment Weekly as “the perfect poster.” In addition to his creative work in the entertainment industry, Verdesoto is launching several educational projects to empower future generations of artists in Latin America.
Pulp Fiction, 1994, directed by Quentin Tarantino. Verdesoto described the making of this poster was about finding the right situation for the character, style of the poster, and typography. The character is posed in a way that is based off of pulp novels, but her appearance serves as an ironic twist to pulp standards. The poster was then stylized as if it were, itself, an old magazine. The typography is reminiscent of a more retro era.
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Valentine, 2001, directed by Jamie Blanks.
Supremacy, 2014, directed by Deon Taylor.
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The Last Samurai, 2003, directed by Edward Zwick.
The Road, 2009, directed by John Hillcoat
Grzegorz Domaradzki
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Grzegorz Domaradzki (Gabz) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań with a Master’s degree in Graphic Arts and Drawing. After the graduation, he first worked as an illustrator and later as a graphic designer for various advertising agencies. In 2005, he went freelance and hasn’t looked back since. In the early years, Gabz’s personal art work revolved around rather dark themes. A conscious effort to make his work more broadly appealing and optimistic in its tone has coincided with an increasing focus on his favorite way of creating images: he initially works with pencil and/or pen, before the handdrawn art gets perfected on his iMac. He also works with vectors, watercolor, acrylic and oil paint. Gabz majors in graphic design and enjoys playing with custom-made typography. Whether it is a personal or a commissioned work, Gabz aims to keep his works attractive, intriguing and captivating in terms of technique, bright colors and concept. Gabz’s personal life is fulfilled by his wife Agnieszka, cinema, music, literature and FPS games on PS4.
Gabs’s alternate posters strike a simplistic yet unique cord with audiences that have grown use to mass produced, corporate posters. This poster strikes the viewer with drastic contrasting colors, yet offers a highly recognizable figure. The typography for the title creates an interesting dynamic that ties the poster together.
Altnerate poster for Batman, 1980, directed by Tim Burton.
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Alternate poster for The Terminator, 1984, directed by James Cameron. Gabs gives the artwork his signature sleek style with neutral colors, except for the flowing red that captures the viewer’s attention. The poster contains the white border of older era posters.
The Silence of the Lambs, 1991, directed by Jonathan Demme.
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Alternate poster for Robocop, 1987, directed by Paul Verhoeven.
Alternate poster for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, 1983, directed by Richard Marquand.
Olly Moss
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Olly Moss was born in 1987 in the UK. He graduated from Birmingham University in 2008 with a degree in English literature and is now one of the world’s most sought-after graphic designers. His illustration work began as a hobby, but showing it on the internet lead to further commissions for his illustrations and his works now sell for hundreds of pounds. Moss is most well known known for redesigning movie posters. Much of his work has been for the poster company Mondo. He has produced illustrations for The Guardian, The New York Times and his designs are regularly featured in Empire magazine. Moss has also produced covers for the comic book Before Watchmen and the video game Resistance 3. Moss is a self-confessed video game addict. In September 2013 he joined with a new game studio called Campo Santo to produce a video game. Moss now says that he can be more selective about what he does, accepting only that work which really interests him, including designing a poster for The Oscars in February 2012. This poster features 85 Oscar statuettes. Each one is a different design and was inspired by the winner of the Best Picture Oscar from the years 1927 to 2012.
Alternate poster for An American Werewolf in London, 1981, directed by John Landis. This poster has two colors that serve as such contrasts as to create a horror tone. An image of a werewolf is located in the outlines of the land and water. The typography of the title further supports the horror tone.
163
Alternate post for The Dark Knight Rises, 2012, directed by Christopher Nolan. This poster creates a sense of noir stylization to its tone. The typography pays homeage to old victorian movies with darker themes. It also has the white border that was abudant during the mid 20th century. The eyes of the Batman create a bat.
Alternate poster for Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, 1983, directed by Richard Marquand.
167
Parody post for The Simpson’s: The Shinning. This poster mocks Saul Bass’s poster for The Shining, replacing the face in its title with the face of Homer Simpson. This poster exemplifies Moss’s varied ttalent.
Alternate poster for The Jungle Book, 1967, directed by Wolfgang Reitherman.
Laurent Durieux
171
Laurent Durieux doesn’t actually live in a retro-futuristic world imagined by H.G. Wells and designed by Raymond Loewy. In Durieux’s world, gigantic robots tower over forests populated by mythical beasts such as Bigfoot and King Kong; city skies are thick with airships shaped like Snoopy, while Buck Rodgers-like vehicles whiz by on slender monorails; and movie monsters are portrayed as sensitive creatures, victims of their grotesqueries rather than revenge-fueled fiends. Though he’s spent two decades as a designer and teacher, the 42-year-old Brussels illustrator and graphic artist was only recently discovered in the United States, thanks to a number of high-profile awards and marquee commissions, including a 2013 screenprint of “Jaws”, which caught the eye of the film’s director, Steven Spielberg. The climb from relative obscurity began, though, in 2011, when Durieux was named one of the world’s 200 Best Illustrators by the influential international advertising magazine Lürzer’s Archive. That year, his short animated film, “Hellville,” was selected for screening at several prestigious film festivals.
Alternate poster for Metropolis, 1927, directed by Fritz Lang. Durieux pays homeage to the original poster by Neudamm by staying with some of the same color tones and composition.
175
Alternate poster for Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1954, directed by Jack Arnold.
Alternate poster for Days of Heaven, 1978, directed by Terrence Malick. This film was shot entirely at golden hour, the few hours before sunset or after sunrise where there are little to no shadows and a golden tone. This poster captures that in its golden tone, as well as giving the viewewr a glimpse into the story by setting a particular scene from the movie. The title here gains a majority of the focus.
179
Alternate poster for Shutter Island, 2010, directed by Martin Scorsese. This psychological thriller sets the tone of what is real and what isn’t, a theme this poster captures perfectly. With the fake buildings and cold tone, any viewer can gather enough information about this film to have a general idea of its content.
Alternate advertising poster for Bates Motel, created by Carlton Cuse. The cold tone of this poster, along with the negative space and blood pool, creates an apparent ominous tone.
Dawn Baillie
183
The...Saul Bass Award...pays tribute to a designer and filmmaker whose name is renown for a lifetime of extraordinary film advertising and filmmaking. Saul Bass reinvented film communications and left a legacy of work from the 1940s until his death in 1996. In 2012, this honor shines upon creative director and designer Dawn Baillie of BLT Communications. Both Bass and Baillie came to the film industry through print and the modern poster...Appreciative of Bass’ iconic approach to film marketing, Baillie says her drive is “to distill our clients’ ideas to find the simplest way to communicate a concept for the film. In every presentation, our group tries to include a graphic or iconic solution. I try to make sure the image has a single focus. Designs always get messy when you try to do too much on one piece of paper.” Crisp, organized layouts that give imagery room to breathe are characteristic of her work. It takes enormous effort to craft layouts that look both spare and inevitable. Not showcasing film actors’ faces is another rare achievement. Rather, Baillie explores the symbolism of a jet stream in the blue beyond to express the upcoming Denzel Washington drama Flight or a lonely figure cornered in the vast solitude of the baseball field for the 2011 Brad Pitt starrer Moneyball. Her poster for Up in the Air plays against the title by showing a most ordinary travel moment of George Clooney peering through glass at the spectacle of a jet being boarded and twists it into one of symbolic entrapment.
Silence of the Lambs, 1991, directed by Jonathan Demme. The contrasting white and black colors indicate the theme of good and evil in the film. The butterfly, a key element in the movie, appears to have a skull on its head, an ominous little touch to the already cold poster. This poster is one of the more well-known cinematic movie posters and one of Baillie’s earlier works before founding BLT Productions.
187
Titanic, 1997, directed by James Cameron. This is one of the earlier examples of Baillie’s company, BLT Communications. It is around this time that posters become more corporately founded instead of individual artists.
Marvel’s The Avengers, 2012, directed by Joss Whedon. Supehero genre movies become a big market for Hollywood. In turn, companies like BLT Communications mass produce posters for such films.
191
American Hustle, 2013, directed by David O. Russell.
Birdman, 2014, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Sources Heinz Schulz-Neudamm http://www.historygraphicdesign.com/the-modernist-era/pictorial-modernism/1106-heinz-schulz-neudamm http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/metropolis-poster-leads-12-million-402242 https://www.cinematerial.com/artists/heinz-schulz-neudamm-i216 http://www.historygraphicdesign.com/the-modernist-era/pictorial-modernism/1106-heinz-schulz-neudamm Reynold Brown http://williamhorberg.typepad.com/william_horberg/2009/05/reynold-brown-pt-2.html http://web.archive.org/web/20010422000338/http://www.geocities.com/chapulinas/reynold0000.htm http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2011/08/amazing-poster-art-of-reynold-brown.html Anselmo Ballester https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anselmo_Ballester https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/evento/ballester/ https://mattmulcahey.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/the-posters-of-italian-artist-anselmo-ballester/ Saul Bass http://www.artrepublic.com/usa/1084-saul-bass http://www.bass-saul.com https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/sep/26/poster.vertigo http://www.saulbassposterarchive.com/gallery/film-posters/ http://illusion.scene360.com/design/49712/saul-bass-anatomy-of-a-poster/ Albert Kallis http://www.grindhousetherapy.com/the-film-poster-art-of-albert-kallis/ https://horrorpedia.com/2014/06/11/albert-kallis-artist-and-illustrator/ Bob Peak https://bobpeakgallery.com/about/ http://rogallery.com/peak_robert/Peak_bio.htm https://bobpeakgallery.com/store/my-fair-lady-hepburn-and-harrison/ http://www.impawards.com/designers/bob_peak.html Bill Gold http://billgold.net http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/movies/05posters.html http://sabotagetimes.com/tv-film/bill-gold-the-man-behind-the-movie-posters Drew Struzan http://www.horsetrackhooligans.com/2012/12/09/episode-70/ https://www.wired.com/2015/02/drew-struzan-movie-posters/ http://www.drewstruzan.com/illustrated/portfolio/ 195
Bill Morrison http://www.rogeryostgallery.com/fine-art/bill-morrison/artist-bill-morrison.htm http://www.enchantedpaintings.com/Bill-Morrison-bio.html http://www.impawards.com/designers/bill_morrison.html John Alvin http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/movies/11alvin.html http://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/john-alvin http://www.impawards.com/designers/john_alvin.html James Verdesoto http://hispanicexecutive.com/2012/capturing-the-art-of-cinema/ http://www.posterposter.org/master-featured/james-verdesoto/ https://medium.com/@tocteman/a-fifty-year-old-guy-from-quito-makes-the-worlds-greatest-movie-posters8e332b1ec80c#.anj0d8a31 Grzegorz Domaradzki http://m-u-s-e-u-m.org/grzegorz-domaradzki-gabz/ http://iamgabz.com Olly Moss http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/olly-moss-top-10-games-of-2014/1100-5152/ https://anningblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/19/olly-moss-a-short-biography/ http://ollymoss.co Laurent Durieux http://www.laurentdurieux.com/bio/ http://www.laurentdurieux.com Dawn Baillie http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/key-arts-saul-bass-award-379513 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/key-arts-saul-bass-award-379513 http://newspages.com/2013/10/10/inspiration-what-magazine-designers-can-learn-from-movie-posters/ http://bltcommunications.com/Explore/TheatricalPrint
Index Contents
1
Introduction
2
Exhibition Details
3
Heinz Schulz-Neudamm
5
Reynold Brown
17
Anselmo Ballester
29
Saul Bass
41
Albert Kallis
53
Bob Peak
65
Bill Gold
77
Drew Struzan
89
Bill Morrison
101
John Alvin
113
James Verdesoto
125
Grzegorz Domaradzki
147
Olly Moss
159
Laurent Durieux
171
Dawn Baillie
183
Sources
195